Helicopter armor

[Imp]

What you are doing is giving them better protection vs dedicated AAA units, no effect vs regular units that don't infact have an EW rating.

The game tests respective EW of firer & target to determine hit chance, you see a message something like EW defeats missile & a big drop in hit chance. Then you get a check to see if the pilot evades & a similar result.

EW does fall down with regard to ATGMs as they ignore it & hence normally have a good hit chance but its pretty rare to find a stationary target for them so its not a huge issue.

[shahadi]

Originally Posted by Imp

What you are doing is giving them better protection vs dedicated AAA units..." The game tests respective EW of firer & target to determine hit chance..."

Interesting. With my Vipers supporting Marines, I have the Vipers 200-300 meters behind the infantry formation. When the Vipers pop up to fire, the EW rating should help the Viper survive INF SAM or AA gun fires. On an interdiction mission, if I inadvertently fly into an an adjacent hex of an opposing rifle squad, within 50 meters, the Viper will bug out as expected.

I would like my Vipers to follow a Venom, but the Venoms do not spot threats any better than the Vipers. I would of course prefer the Venoms to "see" much better as they have IR cameras installed on the latest models during aerial recon missions.

[Suhiir]

As it stands at the moment the only way for a helo to see previously unspotted infantry is to fly right next to it.

If you hover in place a few turns (and somehow survive it) helos will eventually start seeing unspotted units nearby.

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

Well I thought I'd take a break. But I had to look into this. We need to be careful in our terms here.
1. EW is Electronic Warfare with MBT's that deals with defensive suites with Laser & IF detection, Jamming, IFF and the APS or other system. It offers no protection against tank rounds making this last important for the next. So to the topic at hand; with Helos the difference is no APS type systems. However added to the list above you would have chaff and flares or "Angel Fire" systems. But EW will have no bearing on AA/or AAA unless it's radar equipped. The Helo of today would make the radar about useless as these systems have generally not kept up with the times except in the case of some newer SPAA units such as the PANYSIR. I feel the EW ratings based on real world conditions for Helos in the game are actually pretty good and Don quite honestly has given me some "wiggle room" in the ratings I've recommended for the Helos I've submitted especially over the last couple of years. There is a balance to be maintained here because some Helos will approach the level and others I've submitted are at the level of some Jets but, generally speaking the Jet will have and should have a better potential of improved EW capbility if simply because they have more space for it and can better carry the weight of such improved systems. And that's before you get into the issues of Jets also carrying routinely now Target/ECM pods like SNIPER and LITENING Etc.

2. I think it still boils down to these general factors for the game...
A. Ensuring the defensive issues of a particular helo is properly addressed with the information given. Again this has gotten better in the last couple of years with the newer stuff in the game but the work is maybe more in older helos I.E. from about late 1967 to early 1968 in response to the heavy loss of the UH-1 helos in Vietnam, when new ones came into theatre they were locally modified with a "belly" armor plate for protection from ground fire from enemy troops. In theatre ones had them added during maintaince periods.

B. To keep them in the fight increase the Moral factor and possibly the Exprience one as well though I like this option less, it should still be earned. The crew survival issue raised is key to the exprience level dicussion. This goes simply to the whole "I shot the heck out of them and beat feet home!" empty weapons racks idea I discussed earlier in a previous post here.

C. TI/GSR; yes sir got three helo night time videos. First is from last month from a Police helo FLIR system. Second is of two APACHE gunships in the mountains of Afganistan in a rocky, brush and tree enviroment. The last is an AC-130 putting the 105mm to good use in the mountainous woods of Afganistan. NOTE: In the APACHE video in the lower left corner you'll see "TADS" (Targeting System.) when it shows a number with an (*) I.E. *750 that's the distance in meters to the target. Also note the 5 round bursts.

I still stand by my Post from the previous page as the major issues with helos in the game. Enjoy the videos!
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/...-extreme-cold/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXTN6H9O4VA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iopW06M2RI0

Also if I gotta tell you what this is well...


Regards,
Pat

[Suhiir]

I tend to agree, the EW ratings used in WinSPMBT work just fine as is.
They do what EW really does; reduce the chance to be hit by radar guided/aimed weapons.

As to the other things (armor, sighting) those are separate issues totally unrelated to EW.

[Imp]

Sighting is a different issue & not really fixable without a rework.
Cant swear by it but I think better vision capabilities as in 60 or 40 vs zero does give a very slight improvement. Probably & just going from something Ginger Tanker said TI is not as much as a benefit as it should be.
You could test I suppose by cloning units probably infantry so they are identical & fitting different vision aids if you really wanted to. Be hard to be conclusive though because what does it see better the unit, or just through the hindrance's like invisible dust etc.

Problem is only way to improve it AFAIK is to increase experience, so also evasion shooting etc.
So only simple fix I can think of is different TI levels get an experience boost that applies only to the sighting routine.
By that as an example I mean a 40TI unit gets a built in experience boost of XX from the vision aid & it only applies to sighting.

If you wanted to could define systems a bit better this way so 40TI units as an example could come with 3 choices of experience boost to sight.
If you were going to do this though you would possibly want a big negative reduction if it was not through the front facing for most units to offset this so makes sneaking up on tanks still possible.

[shahadi]

Yeah, I increased in the 85 to 97 range for unit Morale and Experience, yet failed to mention in my previous posts. Thanks for the reminder.

[dmnt]

A bit of an off-topic, but I hope you forgive me this:

My pet peeve with helicopters is the "spotting for SAM." On one game my opponent did a paradrop near my helicopter which was landed (or was it again flying but not far from the ammo dump) for a refill. Once his paratroopers were there they were able to communicate and a SAM just launched missiles at it until it was downed. This was in version 6.0 IIRC, is there any fix for this or is this something that's even possible to fix?

[Mobhack]

No - It is basic Steel Panthers.

If private Snuffy spots something then everyone on the battlefield knows exactly what Snuffy knows. Even if he has no radio, and is miles outside of shouting distance. Just like you the Player-God can select Snuffy and see exactly what ammo etc he has.

So the paras spotted the helo with thier Mk1 eyeballs, and a SAM on the other side of the battlefield now knows this by "SP telepathy", and is in LOS = Fox One!.

One could write complicated rules about who knows what, with individual spot lists for each and every unit, and spotting results getting passed up and dowwn the chain of command. Nasty horrible code, and not worth doing since you, the all-seeing Player God KNOW that Pte Snuffy saw a panther there, so you the god-palyer can plot "blind" artillery even though your arty spotter unit really has no actual knowledge of that panther's existence. Or you the Player-god now know there are tanks on your flank, and so you pivot your flank company to face the oncoming troops (who really should continue on clueless and get surprised). There is no way to legislate for this in a 2 player "total command" type game where you have total access to your pieces.

So tabletop gamers ignore such, or they play "command HQ" type games with each player in his own room, and umpires in a third with the real map. Umpires put units on player maps and they can lie!. That is the way the Prussians did Kriegspiel - military types like it, civvie rivet-counting micro-manager types usually hate that sort of game where they dont get to move around their own units with their own hands, and the umpires keep the rule books and roll the dice.

Andy

[Suhiir]

Since you're probably about to ask dmnt ...

What radios do it the game is basically two things:
1) Allow a unit to call in mortars/artillery/air support
2) Allow a unit to be "in command" when located far from it's formation HQ